Press Release and Article Optimization for Your Website

Does your offline marketing or PR department release press releases and just slap them out on the web with the hopes that some newswire service will pick them up? Do they use titles that might spin well in the newspaper and magazine environment but would never find the light of day to an audience on the Internet? Are you having trouble with getting your company’s articles found on the Internet or ranking? Welcome to the world of PR for the web. Internet marketing guru Liana Evans shows you how to optimize your press releases and articles for the Internet.

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Sending out press releases across the Internet is a little different than
just sending them out via email to newspapers or magazines. Much more
planning needs to go into preparing a press release for your online audience.
Trying to reach everyone in cyberspace about your new product release is next to
impossible, and reaching your target audience is something that takes a time to
plan a strategy for.

The most important thing to remember about press releases and articles you
want to release on the Internet is this: what you might consider
important just might not be that important to the world at large. The key to creating successful press releases is understanding
who will find this information intriguing enough to call you to investigate a
little more and create a story out of your information.

Back in the day, stuffing the keyword meta tag with more than 100
keywords might have helped you rank well. This was also the time when launching a new
website or applying a new design was newsworthy. Unfortunately (or maybe
fortunately), those days have passed, and marketers, web site owners, and public
relations experts need to find more interesting hooks around the more mundane
informational announcements that presidents and CEOs insist are "most
newsworthy."

These days, press releases need to be more creative to catch the interest of
the target audience. Press releases also need to be "found,"
or "stand out" among a sea of thousands of others being
released every day.

Since the advent of the Internet, the technology distribution advancements
has been both a blessing and a curse—a blessing because it makes it a lot
easier to reach more prospective outlets, but a curse in that it’s made it
easy for everyone else on the Internet, including your competitors, to do just
the same thing as you are.

So how do you make your articles and press releases stand out? How do you get
your press release found or have it picked up? Here are a few tips for
creating, optimizing, and distributing your articles and press releases.

Define and Know Your Target Audience

First things first, you need to understand that your target audience is not "everyone on the Internet". I once heard a superior of mine state that our target audience was "everyone, everyone’s eyeballs." Not everyone cares that the CEO won this award given by this basically unknown company; however, your customers, industry publications, or even your competitors might.

Press releases and articles, just like websites, have target audiences. Knowing who your audience is helps you decide how to speak to the person you want to eventually read your information.

If you decided who your target audience is ahead of time, it can be a tremendous aid in creating interesting angles, facts, and information for the content of the article or press release. By honing in on an audience, it can help you create the title and hook of your press release that will appeal directly to them. Lastly, knowing who your target audience is helps you define the best keywords to optimize your press release or article.

Define the Keywords for the Press Release

Now that you have defined who your target audience is, you can research what
keywords you should focus on. Keyword research helps you hone in on reaching
that target audience with more refined detail, and it also helps you to be found
in a sea of thousands of other press releases.

The crawlers that the search engines send out to your web site can read press
releases and articles if they are displayed as HTML on a web page or written in
a program like Microsoft Word and then transformed into PDF format for easier
distribution. With this knowledge, you now can understand why even researching
keywords for press releases is important. Web pages rank in search engine
results, and that means if your article or press release is about a certain
subject, it has the potential to rank in the search engine results.

Create an Eye-Catching Hook

Every hour of every day, thousands of press releases are being distributed
through websites, emails, article submission sites, RSS feeds, and press release
distribution channels such as PR Wire and PR Web. That’s a heck of a lot
of "noise" to compete with and try to stand out from. Online marketers
need to stop and think about what will make this press release or article stand
out. Why is it newsworthy? Who will care? Is this information unique among your
industry? Does it offer some revolutionary new service or product that will make
your target audience’s life better or easier?

Creating the hook and knowing how and why it will affect your target
audience's lives is important to know how to pitch the press release to
media outlets in a more personal way. This way, rather than just releasing the
press release to the distribution channels and praying "because you
released it, someone will write about it," you have a reason to give them
why they should write about the subject.

Optimize the Title of the Press Release or Article

Just like with pages on your website, each article or press release should
have an intriguing title that is optimized around words or phrases. Doing so
will entice the reader to click through and read more. Optimizing the
title around the keywords you've chosen with your research will also help
your press release or article be found when conducting searches.

Making the title interesting and intriguing will help drive the
traffic to your website where the press release or article is located or on the
distribution site where you've chosen to announce the press release.

Send an Image with Your Press Release or Article

Including and image that is related to your press release makes the article
more appealing than something that just contains all words. Most readers shy
away from "text" laden articles and press releases, so by
adding images, you help to make it easier for your audience to read. Another
factor to consider when contemplating adding images to your article or
press release is that since the
launch of Google’s Universal Search
and the subsequent 3d Search from Ask and Blended Search from Yahoo, images are
fast becoming another way to make your content stand out.

You can embed the image directly into the press release document or article.
However, if you do that, consider offering links for the reader to actually
download the image in different types of resolutions for their use. Encourage
them to utilize your picture from your site. This not only helps promote your
press release, but can also have the added benefit of obtaining some image
optimization and traffic as well.

Ask an SEO to Look at the Press Release

If your company has access to an SEO (search engine optimization) agency or
consultant or is lucky enough to have the talents of an in-house SEO, it would
be worth your time to actually have this person go over your press release for
any recommendations he might have for better optimization. A fresh set of eyes
that are specifically trained in optimizing content for the web and how your
company's subject matter should be placed can go a long way in helping your
article or press release be found in the search engines.

Decide Which Distribution Channel to Use

Believe it or not, blasting your press release out on services like PR
Newswire or PR Web may not always be the best course of action to take. Neither is submitting your article to 20+
article submission sites. In most cases, these types of services will work just
fine; however, before just defaulting to putting your press release out on the
services, stop and think about a more personal approach that could get you more
quality coverage in your own market space.

Many news and media outlets consider it as you "scooping" your own
story by blasting your press release or article out through these services and
won’t even give your article or press release a second glance. If you have
a really great angle, a hot story, or something so exclusive that it truly is
big news for your company or your industry, you should consider taking the
personal approach by selectively contacting a handful of media outlets about your
press release. Offer to give them exclusive or perhaps semi-exclusive rights to
the story a few days in advance of the official press release.

Taking these steps creates not only a genuine interest but also a great
relationship with the media outlet you are working with. It also helps
get your news covered from a few different angles, which is more than just
the one from your press release. As some might balk at this idea, it’s
likely a much better scenario that gives your news more creditability and increases
it’s chances of actually being covered, rather than just wallowing in the depths of
press release service with 1,000 other press releases.

Summary

The next time you are writing a press release or article for your company (and
your company's motto has always been "write and release" by
default), perhaps taking the time to go through these steps and putting a process in place would be beneficial to your company's online marketing efforts
.

Remembering that your audience isn't everyone, and driving
qualified traffic — and not just "noise" — to your website is key towriting successful articles or press releases. You could be pleasantly surprised by your results after utilizing these suggestions. A little extra effort in optimization can garner extra attention to your content..